In order to expand and ameliorate Internet access around the globe, social media giant, Facebook is making serious attempts of using solar-powered drones.

To pursue this goal, Mark Zuckerberg’s company has initiated a Connectivity Lab, which possesses specialists from NASA and is looking to develop aerospace and communication technologies. The Facebook founder mentioned the Connectivity Lab and its desired operations on his personal Facebook page.

At the present moment, there is a massive digital divide in the world, with almost two-third of the world population deprived of Internet access.

Facebook launched Internet.org last year in collaboration with a few tech companies like Nokia and Samsung. Connectivity Lab is an extension of Internet.org.

Considering the fact that progressing in the current world is almost impossible without Internet access, Internet.org aims at bridging the gap between the ‘Internet haves’ and ‘Internet have nots’. If they are able to achieve this goal, I am sure this would bring about another wave of technology revolution in the world.

The Menlo Park based company has not revealed a lot of details about the venture and did not even hint about the completion time. However, I will keep you folks updated as soon as I get any inside report about the project.

Several technology gurus are slamming Facebook’s policy of paying billions of dollars to acquire smaller companies and feel that the organization’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg is not being practical enough.

In recent past, Facebook has shown a massive inclination to buy other companies. Having acquired Instagram, a popular image sharing website and app, for $1 billion a couple of years ago, the Menlo Park-based organization made headlines last month by paying $19 billion to put WhatsApp, the world’s most popular messaging app, in its kitty.

To shock tech analysts further, the popular social networking platform has decided to buy Oculus, a virtual reality headset-maker, for $2 billion.

Popular tech expert, Roger Kay questions whether Zuckerberg is ‘nuts’ for going ahead with another expensive deal after its acquisition of WhatsApp just a month ago.

It is interesting that Oculus does not have a consumer product in market as yet. All we have is just a promise of exceptional virtual reality goggles.

However, Facebook’s CEO is already thinking about the future and feels that vision-related platforms or the ability to modify what we can see is the future of technology, which is the reason why he has invested a huge amount of money in purchasing Oculus.

Responding to concerns shown by WhatsApp users about the messaging app’s privacy policy after its acquisition by Facebook, the app’s founder, Jan Koum said that WhatsApp remains committed to protecting the personal information of its users and is unhappy about rumors circulating in media.

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app of the world, having more than 450 million users around the globe. It was acquired by Facebook, one of the leading social media websites of the world with more than 1.2 billion users, last month for a mammoth $19 billion deal, making headlines around the globe.

Koum expressed in a blog post, WhatsApp prides itself at protecting its users’ privacy and nothing will change after the app’s merger with Facebook.

Apart from taking a user’s mobile phone number at the time of registration, WhatsApp does not take any other information and the app’s founder has made it clear that the privacy policy will not change in future.

He further added that WhatsApp would never have partnered with Facebook if the deal meant they had to change their values.

Facebook owner, Mark Zuckerberg had also clarified earlier through a statement that the management will not tinker with the messaging app’s existing policy.

Facebook’s recent acquisition of WhatsApp for $19 billion is likely to face intense security by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) as both parties have millions of users in the country.

Every organization needs to inform CCI before any merger and this has not happened in this case as yet. However, on the condition of anonymity, a senior official of the CCI has made it clear that the deal will be thoroughly trialed by the commission.

While 93 million of 1.2 billion Facebook users are estimated to be from India, 40 million out of the 450 WhatsApp users belong to India, which is the reason why Facebook and WhatsApp are expected to file a notice with the CCI in the coming few weeks as they cannot afford to ignore the Indian market.

The acquisition made headlines all around the world; however, it has also raised eyebrows of certain quarters who believe that Facebook might use WhatsApp users’ data to promote its business data, although Mark Zuckerberg’s company has promised to keep WhatsApp a separate entity.

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center of Digital Democracy (CDD) of the US have lodged a complaint in the Federal Trade Commission, requesting for an investigation of the deal while temporarily suspending it.

The Electric Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) have lodged a complaint at the US Federal Trade Commission against Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app of the world.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company bought WhatsApp last month for a mammoth $19 billion but the popular social networking website was not supposed to collect user information to enhance its ad revenue.

However, several proponents of digital privacy have raised their concerns since then, with EPIC and CDD, on behalf of millions of WhatsApp users, requesting the Trade Commission to investigate the matter while suspending the acquisition for the time being.

The complainants believe that Facebook has already shown signs of amalgamating WhatsApp user data into its business model and that is not what the messaging app’s users signed up for as they expect a better level of privacy of their personal information.

WhatsApp claims that it does not gather any data from its users apart from their telephone numbers and even the message content is not stored, allowing users to have complete privacy.

Facebook, on the other hand, has made it clear since the acquisition that it will allow WhatsApp to run independently without changing any privacy policy.

Two Facebook users have filed a complaint against the social networking website in a US federal court in San Jose, California, for sharing their information with marketers and advertisers. As per the suit filed against Mark Zuckerberg’s company, Facebook has been systematically intercepting the private messages of users.

By following the web activity of the message sender, the complaint states, Facebook compiles a data that helps the advertisers to know about their target audience.

Facebook, which is arguably the most popular social networking website of the world, claims to offer top of the line security to its users but as per the suit, this activity is against Electric Communications Privacy Act and also violates the California privacy and unfair competition laws.

With the passage of time, the internet population is getting more and more aware about their rights, which is the reason why there has been an evident increase in the number of cases filed against different websites in recent times.

A spokeswoman of Facebook, Jackie Rooney, feels that the lawsuit filed against the company is not based on merit and made it clear that the website intends to face the court and will present its side of the picture.

Latest studies of Pew Center for Internet and American Life have shown that Facebook is getting extremely popular among people who are more than 65 years of age as the website allows them to communicate conveniently with their children or grandchildren.

As per the surveys, 45 percent of senior citizens in the US, who have access to the internet, have Facebook profiles. It needs to be mentioned that this figure is 10 percent greater than the figures of 2012.

During the initial years of social networking websites, it was widely believed that they are just a source of entertainment or communication for youngsters only; however, with the passage of time, social media has become a great attraction for mature audience all around the world.

Facebook happens to be one of the most popular social networking websites of the world, having more than a billion users. Approximately 71 percent of Americans use Facebook.

Interestingly, the use of Facebook among the youngsters is 84 percent, which was exactly the same in 2012. These are extremely important figures and are likely to have a significant impact on Facebook’s policies in the coming months as Mark Zuckerberg’s company would take all possible measures to retain their young users.

Most people don’t remember to send end-of-the-year letters to their beloved ones and as a result experience a guilt trip all year. No worries, because this is the ideal time to let Facebook and Google do the work for you and send the year-end letters on your behalf.

Both, Google and Facebook, have devised methods to judge your top memories, photos and moments and then share it with your social contacts. If you have uploaded videos & pictures on your Google+, then its auto-awesome movie feature combines the videos in a fantastic way and packages it into an embedded video on YouTube. The auto-awesome characteristic analyzes the pictures uploaded and transforms them into a wonderful animation. All the more as of late, this feature took a regular turn by adding falling snowflakes to blanketed scenes and made Christmas-tree photographs twinkle.

On the other hand, Facebook gave the name” Your Year in Review” to this feature and described it as a collection of your grandest moments in the form of pictures which are uploaded by you or where you are tagged.

You have to admit that only a tiny fraction of people bother to write end-year letters and these features by Facebook and Google have made this job a whole lot easier.

]]>https://www.techgadgetsweb.com/12754/year-end-letters-easy-facebook-google/feed0Facebook Selects Criminal Case instead of Candy Crush as the Game of the Yearhttps://www.techgadgetsweb.com/12727/facebook-selects-criminal-case-candy-crush-game-year
https://www.techgadgetsweb.com/12727/facebook-selects-criminal-case-candy-crush-game-year#respondWed, 11 Dec 2013 23:38:23 +0000http://www.techgadgetsweb.com/?p=12727King’s candy Crush was the most addictive game this year, yet it’s not Facebook’s game of the year. Rather, the social network hand-picked Criminal Case, a concealed object game from Pretty Simple, as its 2013 top pick.

Facebook distributed its 2013 games of the year record on Monday. The agenda talks about the editorial accumulation of titles which were picked dependent upon an assortment of components, incorporating player evaluations, quality, month to month and every day dynamic clients, business triumph, and Facebook’s estimations on development and imagination.

“The game maintains the highest possible player evaluations for quality,” Dan Morris, head of North American games association for the social network, told CNET of Criminal Case. “It’s the trademark of a top quality games… furthermore, succeeded in imagining a truly new experience on the stage.”

Though not in the same group as Candy Crush (yet), Criminal Case has 100 million month to month dynamic users, a number that was for all intents and purpose unfathomable at the start of 2013. “Pretty Simple came up like a bat out of hell,” Morris said, including that the French non mainstream studio went from a blip on the radar to a greatly paramount game organization in the compass of 12 months.

In order to promote the inclusion of more links to high-quality news articles instead of meme photos that redirect users to other websites, Facebook has revealed earlier this week that it is making changes in the News Feed algorithm.

Facebook is without doubt one of the most popular social networking websites of the globe with more than a billion followers. In order to retain its huge base of users, it has been making a few changes in its services in recent months.

Before making the changes regarding the News Feed, the popular social networking website conducted a research among its users. These enhancements will allow users to have more access to articles and content that is related to current affairs, politics, sports, etc.

The changes will soon be witnessed by Facebook users, especially on mobile, as the company intends to bring more interesting content for users on the go. As compared to the current trends of Facebook News Feed, the changes will definitely make users’ experience much better as they will get to know better about their friends and what is happening around the world.

Facebook engineering manager, Varun Kacholia and software engineer, Minwen Ji expressed in a company blog that people are more interested in news articles as compared to photos.